Shawi, State House & Jerabos cash in on Black Mountain

Cobalt is now $90,000 per tonne, while Copper is ,$7,600.00 ,per tonne.

The Kitwe Black mountain slug is mostly copper and cobalt.

The mountain is being stripped at an astonishing rate.

Cobalt is selling at $90,000.00 per tonne while Copper is at $7,600.00 per tonne.

UNSAFE MINING METHODS

Barely 3 months after the government of Zambia granted permission to the Copperbelt “small-scale miners” popularly known as Jerabos, a group being controlled by Shawi Fawazi and State House Special Assistant for Politics, Kaizer Zulu, to mine at the Nkana slag dump also known as Black Mountain, several houses in a nearby mine area called Nkana West have been destroyed.

The houses were destroyed by the rocks that came from the blast which occurred due to explosives that were used to blast a wall which was blocking an area that was intended for mining.
Zambian Watchdog exclusive
The Jerabos had hired what appeared to be an unlicensed and poorly equipped a blasting company to speed up the strip ratios.

WHAT ARE THE FACES BEHIND THE PLUNDER?

In 2015, through direct influence of State House , a judge ordered Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company (NASC) to surrender ‘Black Mountain’ to Shawki Fawaz, a documented criminal.

He is a friend of President Lungu.

Black Mountain is a copper slag dump located in Wusakile township Kitwe.

In April 2018, Minister Richard Musukwa officially handed over the controversial Copper slug dumpsite famously known as Black Mountain in Kitwe to Chapamo Minerals Processing Company, a company formed by the Jerabos and Nkana Alloy, a Chinese Company.

It was a licensed dump where slag from the Nkana smelter was being dumped until it reached its maximum design limit in the 1990s.

At privatisation in 1998, Nkana
Slag Dump area was hived off from the Nkana Mine rights and awarded to Chambeshi Metals Plc who had a plant in Chambeshi that could treat the slag materials and recover some of the copper and cobalt contained in it.

In the same year, Chambeshi Metals was granted a large scale mining license over the same area.

The company worked the dump from early 2000 to 2010,
when operations were suspended due to the slump in commodity prices and the global economic
crisis that not only Zambia, but the entire world faced.

On 27th December, 2012, Chambeshi Metals Plc applied to the ministry to transfer the licence over the Nkana Slag Dump to a newly formed company called Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company Limited.

Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company Limited acquired the
license over the dump through a transfer from Chambeshi Metals PLC on 23rd April, 2013, at a
total cost of K19,320,000.

At the time of the transfer, the shares in Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company Limited were Eurasia Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) (British Virginia Island

(BVI) Limited at 90 per cent and ZCCM-IH at 10 per cent.

ENRC (BVI) is the majority shareholder in Chambeshi Metals Plc with 90 per cent while ZCCM-IH holds 10 per cent of the shares.

Immediately after the transfer, before Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company Limited could move on site, Chambeshi Metals withdrew the security personnel who were guarding the dump.

This created room for illegal miners in the form of youth groups who immediately invaded the dump and started mining illegally.

The Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development later engaged the Zambia Police Services who drove away the illegal miners and provided security at the dump round the clock.

A few weeks later, a company called Lunga Mineral Resources and Exploration Limited acquired a mineral processing license over an area within Kitwe District whose coordinates overlapped on the ground with the license held by Nkana Alloy and Smelting
Company Limited.

Zambia Watchdog exclusive
Lunga Mineral Resources and Exploration Limited quickly sought a court order to protect their rights over the Black Mountain. The court order was granted to Lunga Mineral Resources and Exploration Limited and an injunction was served on Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company Limited which kept Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company Limited from operating the dump until 2013.

Lunga Mineral Resources and Exploration Limited then moved on site and started mining and security by Zambia Police was removed because there was a court order to
that effect.

The matter was in court from 2013 until early 2016, when the interim injunction was discharged and the court ruled in favour of Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company Limited as the
rightful owner of the slag dump.

Following this ruling, the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development requested the Ministry of Home Affairs to again provide security at the dump and allow the legitimate owners of the dump, Nkana Alloy and Smelting Company Limited, to resume their mining and processing operations.

The mineral processing license for Lunga Mineral Resources and Exploration Limited was then terminated by the Mining License
Committee in public interest in accordance with Section 72 of the Mines and Minerals Act.